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Kelley McKeating is organizing a protest against a new medical building being built at Victoria and Richmond streets where construction preparation, below, was under way Monday. (MIKE HENSEN, The London Free Press)

Just as the shovels are about to dig into a gaping hole in Old North London, neighbours have launched a last-ditch effort to stop the planned development.

“It may be too late, we don’t know, but we’re concerned,” said Kelley McKeating, one of the residents opposed to the four-storey structure being built by Calgary-based Statesman Group.

A 96-name petition arrived at London city hall last week, and lawn signs declaring Stop the Medical Mall have popped up on properties near the former McCormick Home property at Victoria and Richmond streets.

For almost seven years, the site has sat overgrown and empty and became a neighbourhood eyesore, while plans were in the works to revive it.

Based on public consultation in 2011, residents believed a seniors’ home would be built there, McKeating said. What they thought was the final plan called for a development with 12 one-storey independent living units and a four-storey care facility with a garden that McKeating said would be in-keeping with the neighbourhood.

She and many of her neighbours weren’t aware that in May 2012, the design was changed to a four-storey building with medical offices taking up half of the space of the seniors’ building, she said.

“The medical office component was never part of the consultation. It was something that the developer introduced essentially after the consultation had ended.”

Coun. Bud Polhill, who was head of planning committee when the applications were heard, said there was ample discussion and a public meeting at city hall when changes to the plan were proposed.

The community was notified and the plan was debated, he said. The final plan was announced last July.

“I don’t know what (neighbours) can do now. We already dealt with it at council.”

“I don’t think they should be surprised that it’s a fairly large building and it has some commercial uses on the main floor.”

Polhill said the developer followed the proper procedures to start construction.

The new building could have as many as 78 medical offices, with a pharmacy, and draw 2,800 cars a day on Victoria St., McKeating said.

Parents are concerned about their children walking to Ryerson elementary school, she said, and homeowners fear their property values will drop.

McKeating said the community is “strongly in favour” of a retirement home or a care facility, but it doesn’t want the commercial element and a building almost double the height of the homes around it that would lead to more traffic.

“We hope that even if nothing can be done here, we hope there are some lessons here that the city could adopt and could learn from so that infill redevelopment elsewhere in the city goes smoother in the future.”